U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,583 discloses a mounting press for mounting preassembled card edge connectors onto a printed circuit board. The press includes an insertion head having two rows of push pins with alignment means between the rows. The connectors include a housing with a row of contacts on each side of a card edge receiving slot. The lower ends or posts of the contacts extend below the housing and have compliant sections thereon for being frictionally seated in plated-through holes in the circuit board.
The procedure for seating or mounting the connectors begins with manually placing each connector on the circuit board with the posts of the contacts loosely inserted into respective plated-through holes. The circuit board is then placed on an X-Y table in the press and the insertion head moved downwardly to engage a respective connector in alignment therewith. The alignment means first engage the connector to straighten it if necessary and then the push pins enter the contact cavities in the connector housing to engage upwardly facing shoulders on the contacts therein. Continued downward travel of the insertion head presses the compliant sections of the contact posts into the plated-through holes to complete the connector mounting. The insertion head is then withdrawn, the table moved to bring another loosely mounted connector into alignment with the insertion head travel path to repeat the mounting procedure.
The above described mounting procedure requires labor and time to loosely insert the depending contact leads of each connector into the plated-through holes in the circuit board. The present invention is intended to provide an improved connector mounting press in which the connectors are stored, successively transferred to releasable retaining means and from there picked up by a moving insertion tool to be carried to and mounted on a circuit board thereby.